Spearheaded by its Centre for Future Materials, the University of Southern Queensland boasts one of Australia’s largest dedicated composite materials manufacturing and testing facilities.
Key equipment includes:
- Australia’s most advanced 8-axis filament winder to support pressure vessel and ultra-high temperature oxide processing research and development. See it in action.
- Dual layer robotic braiding facility capable of manufacturing high performance complex tubular composite structures for aerospace, defence, and space applications.
- Resin infusion composite manufacturing: Aerospace grade composite manufacturing and characterisation equipment.
- Process and in-service sensing systems including the only system in the world for 16,000 node pressure sensor mats for monitoring pressure evolution in vacuum and autoclave processing (0 to 12 bar).
- A Dielectric Analysis to monitor internal laminate cure progression and a full field digital image correlation strain mapping system.
- Industrial size pultrusion machine, capable of processing via resin bath or resin injection techniques, also able to be paired with the dual ring braider to enable pull-braided structures to be manufactured.
Centre for Future Materials also specialises in fire and thermal performance with a full fire testing and analysis suite, including a blast furnace which reaches 3500° to simulate harsh rocket exhaust environments.
- Cone Calorimeter – FTT iCone Classic
- Limited Oxygen Index – FTT Oxygen Index
- Horizontal/Vertical Burning Chamber – FTT UL94 Chamber
- Smoke Density and Smoke Toxicity – Govmark Smoke Chamber
- Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry – Shimadzu Py-GC/MS
To learn more, contact the Centre for Future Materials.
